In a final vote in the Senate, Parliament must validate on Wednesday the text prepared by the government for the Olympic Games-2024, whose important “protection” component convinces the majority right, unlike the left which fears a security Trojan horse .
After four hurdles passed without incident (one vote at first reading in the Senate, two in the Assembly and an agreement in the joint committee) this is the final straight line for the copy of the executive and its flagship measure, algorithmic video surveillance.
The goal: for algorithms to feed on camera and drone images to more quickly identify potentially dangerous “events”, such as the start of a crowd movement or the abandonment of luggage, and report them to the teams security who scrutinize the gatherings behind their screens.
But the list of “events” to be detected will be fixed later, which does not reassure opponents of the text who wonder what behaviors will be scrutinized.
The experiment, which could begin as soon as the promulgation, and concern the next Rugby World Cup for example (September 8-October 28) should theoretically end on March 31, 2025.
The images, which may be analyzed using private company algorithms, may be retained for a maximum of 12 months.
The executive and the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin invoke the need to secure the millions of visitors, insists on the safeguards, and the absence of facial recognition in the program.
But left-wing elected officials, associations such as Amnesty and La Quadrature du net, or the National Bar Council are against it.
Some believe that the Olympic Games (July 26-August 11) and Paralympic Games (August 28-September 8) will only serve as a showcase to perpetuate these “augmented cameras”, and to generalize their use for the surveillance of the entire population.
“We will have a France under a bell,” retorted the environmental senator Guy Benarroche at first reading. “We do not sweep away fundamental rights in this way”, accused the communist Eliane Assassi.
Insufficient to block the text, the Senate adopted it at first reading with 245 votes in favor (28 against). And history should repeat itself on Wednesday.
The Assembly largely approved the text in a last vote on the lower house side on Tuesday (244 votes against 57).
In the event of a new success in the Senate, it will be considered as definitively adopted. But left-wing deputies have already warned that they would seize the Constitutional Council.
Other measures of the bill are already supposed to continue after the Games, such as the extension of the field of “screening”, the conduct of administrative investigations on people. Participants and accredited persons at competition sites and fan zones may be targeted, but not fans.
The text would come into force about a year after the fiasco of the Champions League final at the Stade de France.
Endless queues, spectators with blocked tickets while others without tickets climbed the gates, families and supporters targeted by gas shots,… French-style policing came out of the sequence humiliated .
The government’s plan provides for the creation of two offences: one punishing unlawful entry, in a situation of recidivism, into a sports arena. The other repressing the fact of entering the area or the field of competition.
Environmentalists are particularly concerned that the measure will be used against climate activists.
A mandatory stadium ban penalty for serious security breaches would also be created.
More consensual measure: the text provides for the creation of a health center in the Olympic village in Saint-Denis, although the opposition regrets that the structure does not survive the Olympics, in a department which lacks caregivers.
It will also reinforce the anti-doping arsenal of the authorities, with in particular tests intended to detect forms of genetic doping.
Finally, it provides for derogations from the rules of Sunday rest, which will run from June 15 to September 30, despite the opposition of the parliamentary left, and support systems for the transport of spectators with disabilities.
04/12/2023 04:38:32 – Paris (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
